mv --no-clobber option

Altay_H · #1 01-16-2009

Hi,
I'm writing a script in which I need to move files from one directory to another. However, some of the files have the same name, and I want to keep the older file, so I can't use --update. I'm moving files from the newer directory to the older directory, so what I'm looking for is a way to automatically not overwrite. Basically, I need the behavior of mv with the opposite of --force option. I can't use the --interactive option either, because I'm copying multiple files and I don't want mv to hang.

There's no reason I must use mv, I just assumed it'd be the easiest way to accomplish what I need. If there's an easier way that doesn't involve mv I'm open for suggestions.

After searching around a while I found this recent webpage which makes it seem as though mv will now have a --no-clobber option which will do exactly what I need. I'm running Ubuntu on this computer, so I'm sure the webpage is relevant, but mv doesn't like --no-clobber despite the fact that my system is updated.

So basically what I need is explained in the first paragraph. I want a script to move files from one directory to another and automatically NOT overwrite: the oppsite of --force.

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions!

cfajohnson · #2 01-16-2009

Code:

dest=/path/to/destination/directory
mv -fb * "$dest"
for f in "$dest"/*~
do
   mv -f "$f" "${f%.*}"
done

Altay_H · #3 01-17-2009

Thanks for the help, but I couldn't get it to work. I'm assuming your script is meant to be run from the "from" directory and that /path/to/destination/directory is meant to be replaced by the path to the "to" directory.

Unfortunately, when I run the script, not only are the files in the destination directory overwritten by the files from the origin directory, but the copies in the origin directory are also deleted. That's more or less the exact opposite of the desired behavior.

I need the copies in the destination directory to never be overwritten. I also would like to leave the duplicate copies in the original directory. Below is an example of the desired behavior:

Code:

$ ls -a ~/from
file1.ext
file2.ext
$ cat ~/from/file1.ext
original file
$ ls -a ~/to
file1.ext
$ cat ~/to/file1.ext
destination file
$ ~/magical_script.sh
$ ls -a ~/from
file1.ext
$ cat ~/from/file1.ext
original file
$ ls -a ~/to
file1.ext
file2.ext
$ cat ~/to/file1.ext
destination file

cfajohnson · #4 01-17-2009

Code:

fromdir=/path/to/original/files
destdir=/path/to/destination/directory

cd "$fromdir" || exit 1

for file in *
do
  [ -f "$destdir/$file" ] || mv "$file" "$destdir"
done

Altay_H · #5 01-17-2009

Thank you. That did exactly what I needed.

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